The Harbinger
Tech 63100: Global Perspectives on Emerging Technologies
Spring 2024
What Tech Calls Thinking
Question: Why does Ayan Rand's philosophy resonate throughout Silicon Valley?
Genius
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"My philosophy, in essence, is the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute." - Ayan Rand on her philosophy of Objectivism
Ayan Rand urged people to be selfish. Her philosophy centered around reality, reason, self-interest and capitalism broken down to the following (ARI, 2024):
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Follow reasons, not whims or faith
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Work hard to achieve a life of purpose and productiveness
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Earn genuine self-esteem
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Pursue your own happiness at your highest moral aim
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Prosper by treating others as individuals, trading value by value​
Ayan Rand is marketed to young people, instilling this belief in a capitalist enterprise devoid of communal and moral frameworks. This mentality follows youths into Silicon Valley and feeds into the "entreprenueral spirit" building tech for monetary gains while ignoring moral consequences on people and economy (Daub, 2020).
The Exponential Age
Question: What is the next evolution beyond the transistor / semiconductor?
The Harbinger
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The evolution of the semiconductor from transistor to an integrated circuit and finally to the silicon chip saw the decrease in size while increasing in power. This observation resulted in Moore's law: every 18 to 24 months, chips would get twice as powerful for the same cost. This law is not predictive behavior but descriptive with industry wishing this behavior into existence. This continued evolution of compute power was critical to improving computers at an astonishing rate with the speed of a computer processing information being roughly proportional to the transistors making up its processing unit (Azhar, 2021).
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While semiconductors continue to get smaller and faster, the next exponential technology in compute power is quantum computing. Semiconductors partly conducts electricity and partly doesn't allowing computers to encode information in bits (0 or 1) based on whether the electric current is off on on. Quantum computers use quantum bits, or qubits, which can superposition 0 and 1 simultaneously until its state is measured. A qubit can also be entangled, linking to other qubits quantum mechanically. Superposition and entanglement gives quantum computers capabilities unknown to classical computing allowing scientists and engineers to solve problems that are effectively impossible for conventional / classical computers to solve (Caltech, 2024).
References
ARI (2024). Introduction to Objectivism. Retrieved February 2024 from Ayan Rand Institute: https://aynrand.org/ideas/overview/.
Azhar, A. (2021). The Exponential Age. Diversion Books.
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Caltech (2024). What Is Quantum Computing? Retrieved February 2024, from Caltech Science Exchange: https://scienceexchange.caltech.edu/topics/quantum-science-explained/quantum-computing-computers.
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Daub, A. (2020). What Tech Calls Thinking. New York: FSG Originals.